A Mural in Crimson
by The Migratory Lime
Summary: "They were both dead. I'd killed them. You would have thought that would make it all better. But it didn't." Johnlock. Case Fic. Contest Entry.


**Title**: A Mural in Crimson

**Fandom**: Sherlock

**Pairing(s)**: Johnlock

**Warning(s)**: Rated T for some twisted descriptions of murder and a suicide.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own BBC Sherlock or Sherlock Holmes.

**A/N**: Written for fuckyeahjohnlockfanfic's casefic contest on Tumblr. It's the longest fic I've ever written and I had a lot of fun doing it, so I'm hoping it's worth reading. Also, many kudos to my roommates for helping me so much with the plot and a small piece of the writing in this fic. Enjoy!

* * *

The city was absolutely buzzing with gossip. A tragedy, some called it, though most would say that branding it as such a thing would be an understatement. The series of murders plaguing London could not be described as mere tragedy. They were the work of nothing short of a criminal mastermind, morbidly fascinating and incomprehensibly gruesome at once. A first for the criminal world of London and _that_… Well, that was certainly new. Some said that the crimes could not possibly have been committed by a single person, yet the cops knew otherwise. Surely a group would leave some sort of evidence in their wake and this criminal left none. Three murders committed thus-far and not a single shred of evidence to be accounted for. Only three bloody murals slathered upon the walls and three pale, mangled bodies to match.

Megan Hahn dropped two cubes of sugar into her mug of tea, stirred, and took a deep breath. Today had left her feeling more than a little unsettled and the seemingly endless amount of bad news flooding in through the television was hardly helping. It seemed as if the local news had little to report on as of late save for the absolutely repulsive. But then… with _that_ going on, how could the news possibly focus on anything else?

She glanced out the window above the kitchen sink. The rain still hadn't stopped. It'd been pouring for two days now, a slow, steady drizzle that flooded the London streets and sent deluges of grey water cascading from storm drains. It was as if the city itself had become uneasy, weeping for those lost, washing the streets clean of the blood that so recently pervaded. Megan took a long draught of her tea and pulled a face. It was lukewarm. Bitter. She'd definitely need to invest in a new kettle soon. To put it delicately, the one she'd been using since university was old and beginning to grow rather… foul. She poured the liquid atrocity out into the sink and rinsed her mug. Best forget it.

God, what a day it had been.

Normally she wouldn't let such little things bother her. There were plenty of strange people in London. But it had been a bad week in general and now even the slightest mishaps were beginning to get to her, gnawing at her subconscious and implanting her thoughts with seeds of irrational fear.

She needed _sleep_.

Today she'd gotten off work significantly later than usual in an attempt to meet a plethora of looming deadlines, meaning it was well past sunset by the time she locked up the building and reached the tube. The station was remarkably empty upon her arrival, which, in itself, was somewhat unnerving, but she refused to let it get to her. She was being silly, she told herself. Nothing bad was going to happen. It wasn't even all that late yet. Only a little past ten at night. She was going to be fine.

But upon boarding the train, she found that very same fear returning to her, making her blood run cold. There were only a handful of people on the train: two chatting at one another animatedly further down the way and one more sitting just slightly off to her left. Nothing odd in itself, and yet… Something felt wrong. Megan tried to occupy herself. She pulled her phone from her bag and began sifting through emails on its web browser. Anything to distract her. But it didn't work. She could feel someone watching her. It was the person on her left. She just knew it. The stranger's deep blue eyes seemed to follow her every movement, as though she were a target and the moment to strike simply hadn't arrived. She forced herself to suppress a shudder, focusing more intently on the tiny screen cradled in her palm. Her eyes skimmed over clumps of words, but she read nothing. Her stop could not come soon enough.

The instant the train pulled to a halt and the doors on her immediate right opened, Megan rushed out as quickly as possible without seeming absolutely frenzied and refused to look back. If the strange person from the subway was following her, she didn't want to know. The ride had been bad enough. She raced up the escalator, digging her umbrella out of her bag, and made the brief walk home as quickly as possible. All but running, it didn't take long. The moment she entered her second-floor flat she dead-bolted the door behind her and breathed a sigh of relief. No matter what that person wanted earlier, she was safe now. No one could get in.

And now here she was; still unsettled, but not quite to the same degree as she had been on the tube. She took another deep breath, inching herself closer to that state of calm she so desperately sought and made her way over to the sofa. The news was still playing, but she didn't turn the channel. Instead she tucked her feet up underneath her and watched as the blonde news anchor tapped her papers against the desk in front of her nervously. For the briefest instant, Megan could see the unease in her eyes.

"It has been called the most gruesome series of murders London has seen in decades," the woman began, her voice calm and controlled, "An individual of an as-of-yet unknown identity has taken three lives in the last month and, early this week, a fourth was discovered in his home in Southwark. Nathan Hammond, a 49-year-old car salesman, was found dead by his wife, Margaret, just slightly before midnight Tuesday evening. The murder has been estimated to have taken place less than four hours prior to her arrival. As seems to be common with this string of murders, the police have been unable to find any visible signs of an intrusion.

"Thus far, the criminal has left no identifying evidence as to who he is or what his motives may be in committing this string of murders. Seemingly the only evidence the killer has left in his wake is a series of morbid pictures accompanying each crime scene, painted with the victims' blood. The police are reaching out to the public for help with this series of crimes, pleading that any suspicious activities be reported immediately."

Megan shut off the television and rubbed her temples. God, not again. Whoever this person was, he was absolutely _sick_. Painting pictures with the blood of his victims? Who could even think up something so deranged, let alone _do_ it? She shook her head. No sense in thinking about that. Doing so would only worsen her already brewing headache. Instead, she rose from the couch and headed down the short corridor to her bedroom. Turning in… That was definitely beginning to sound like a brilliant idea.

Her bedroom was dark, save for the dim pearlescent glow of streetlights through the sheer fabric of her curtains. She paused in the doorway. Something was wrong. In the darkness of her bedroom, Megan could hear it: breathing. Soft. Shallow. The breathing pattern of someone hoping to go unnoticed. She wasn't alone. Someone was with her. Someone was waiting. Oh, God, something was most definitely wrong. She should have run. She should have screamed. But all at once she understood what it meant to be literally paralyzed with fear. She couldn't move, even as the one lurking in the shadows stepped closer. Tears bordered her eyes. It was the person from the subway.

She was going to die.

Unbridled passion burned in that person's eyes, seeming almost red with bloodlust, and a strangled cry erupted from her throat, only to be stifled by the sound of a weapon cutting through thin air with terrifying speed. Megan gasped just as the brunt of a hard iron pipe slammed into her temple, causing the world around her to spin and fade. In the moment before darkness wrapped her in its cold embrace, she saw but one last thing: deep blue eyes brimming with satisfaction.

* * *

"Bored."

John peered over the top of the newspaper he'd been reading to glance at the world's only consulting detective across the way, suppressing a smirk at the man's outward appearance. Sherlock sat shrunken down in the armchair across from him (no easy feat for a man of his height), still wearing his pajamas and blue dressing gown, legs outstretched towards the fireplace, eyes closed, and hands pressed together beneath his chin as though he were praying. To put it simply, he was absolutely miserable. They'd been without any case of interest for nearly a month, and it was driving Sherlock to near madness.

"Can't bloody well imagine why, what with the mess you've made of the kitchen," John remarked, casting him a withering look that went entirely unnoticed, "Mrs. Hudson nearly fainted when she brought up those biscuits earlier and realized you'd been keeping a disembodied _hand_ in the fridge."

"Irrelevant," Sherlock replied, not bothering to open his eyes, "Experiments are hardly sufficient to keep my mind preoccupied when doused in such prevalent _boredom_."

John folded the paper and placed it atop a pile of precariously stacked books on the nearby end table, his mouth tugged into a hard line. He felt sorry for the poor sod. Really, he did. Sherlock's mind ran at the speed of light, never ceasing for an instant, even when faced with unimaginable danger. But there were only so many things one man could deduce within the confines of his own flat and Sherlock's well of inquiry had run notably dry. He needed _work_, but John wasn't the one to give it to him. He loathed to think what might happen if this went on much longer. Frighteningly enough, it would come as no surprise to John if he arrived home from the clinic one day to discover Sherlock had blown the whole building to bits in the wake of one of his experiments.

"Please, John," Sherlock said suddenly - as though he'd been reading his very thoughts - and gave him a pointed look, "As if I could manage an explosion of that caliber here in the flat. At the very least I'd need to obtain materials - "

"I'd much prefer not knowing how you'd manage to level the flat, thank you," John replied, standing up and making his way into the kitchen. He wasn't even going to bother asking how Sherlock had known what he was thinking. Probably something deduced from the way his eyes moved or the slightest twitch of his hand.

Removing the empty kettle from the stovetop, John carried it over to the sink and filled it with water. Surely another case wasn't far off.

He stole another glance at the detective, who hadn't moved an inch in the last six hours. _Surely_.

The sudden low buzz of a phone set on vibrate split the silence that had overtaken the flat and Sherlock's eyes snapped open at once, quickly thrusting himself out of his chair and searching the apartment with astonishing dexterity for a man who hadn't budged an inch all day.

"John," Sherlock sounded almost panicked as he stumbled about the living room, digging through stack after stack of books and papers in order to find the damned gadget. "John! What's happened to my phone? John!"

"How should I know?" He called from the kitchen, settling the kettle on one of the foremost burners and lighting it. A sudden remembrance flashed in his mind not a moment later and he quickly added, "Check the windowsill!"

An elated "HAH!" from just beyond his line of vision told him everything he needed to know. He watched as the incredibly lanky man paraded about the flat for a moment, in and out of sight, periodically shouting out another series of 'hah!'s as he pumped the phone above his head in triumph. Definitely Lestrade, then. John had to suppress a chuckle. He watched as Sherlock stepped over the coffee table and seated himself on the couch, laying an arm across the back and answering at long last.

"Sherlock Holmes."

* * *

Not an hour later, the two arrived at the scene of the crime, a tall apartment building in Sutton. A homicide, Lestrade said, but one far from ordinary. The victim was a young woman - marked the fifth of an as-of-yet unknown serial killer. Due to the unusually morbid nature of the crimes, Scotland Yard struggled to keep the details under wraps as long as possible and had succeeded in doing so for quite some time. But as the case continued to wear on and the murders continued, the media grew impatient. They released only the necessary details in hopes that the public may prove helpful, but so far not a single lead had come in. The killer didn't seem to leave any evidence whatsoever, save for his rather… _unique_ method of murder, and it was beginning to look as though they might never find the perpetrator behind it. Of course these details only served to excite Sherlock, and John could practically feel the anticipation radiating off of him as they made their way into the building and up the stairs.

The entrance to the victim's flat had been sectioned off with yellow police tape and, as was the norm, Sally Donovan was standing watch at the door. She sneered as the two of them approached.

"Lestrade finally had to call on you two, then?" she asked, unclipping her walkie-talkie from her belt, "What a disappointment. Thought I might well make it a month without seeing you." She pressed a button and after a brief squelch, spoke into the device. "Freak's here with the doctor. Letting him through."

Donovan lifted the yellow tape so that the two of them could duck under, and Sherlock continued into the flat without giving her a second look.

"Always good to see you, Donovan," John said with a small sigh as he followed him inside.

The flat was surprisingly spacious, at least twice the size of their own on Baker Street and lovingly decorated. The woman who lived in it had clearly been a long-time resident. Potted plants adored every fathomable surface, sharp green in contrast with the stark white and silver of the woman's furniture. A piano was positioned between the windows in the den and a series of watercolor portraits adorned the hall leading to what John could only assume was her bedroom.

Lestrade met the two of them halfway, a grave look on his face.

"I should warn you before you go in there," he said, his eyes glazed over with remembrance, "This one's not a pretty sight. We haven't exactly told the media everything there is to know."

"Please," Sherlock brushed him off, giving Lestrade an unconvinced look as he confidently strode into the woman's bedroom.

John couldn't be entirely certain it wasn't a trick of the eyes, but for the briefest instant, he could see a sudden tension arise in Sherlock's shoulders. After pressing past Lestrade, himself, he instantly knew why. He stared, unable to grasp exactly what he was seeing. The scene before them was by far among the grisliest he'd ever seen, and he'd been to _war_. Smeared across the stark white wall immediately to his left was a mural painted in a rusty sort of reddish brown and, upon closer inspection, John recognized the 'paint' for what it truly was. Blood. The very thought made his stomach clench with discomfort. It depicted great waves crashing over a rocky coast, beautifully done and made even more haunting by the fact. Whoever the killer was, he or she was phenomenally talented in the arts. John shook the thought from his mind. God, what was he thinking? This was a crime scene! A woman had been killed! Why was he admiring the work of a serial killer?

Rather than continue to focus on the unsettling landscape the killer had painted, John turned his attention instead to the body of the victim. A number of details struck him at once. A large, incredibly deep gash ran across the woman's neck, the wound now swollen and crusted over with dried blood. Her face was covered, her hair stiffened with it, and upon closer inspection, John recognized the tight loops tied around her ankles. The strong silver wire had been knotted so tightly around them that it'd begun to cut into the skin, hard and deep, so much so that certain lengths of the stuff was embedded in her flesh. Had the killer strung her up, then? That would most certainly explain the odd placement of the blood.

"Name's Megan Hahn. A journalist. Worked with _The Daily Telegraph_," Lestrade said, joining him beside the corpse and stuffing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, "And yes, that's piano wire, 'case you were wondering. The killer looped it around a plant hook fixed to the ceiling, then strung her up with it." He pointed upwards and sure enough, there in the corner was the hook, severed wire still wound tightly around it. "Killer slit her throat, then left her hanging there while she bled out. Like some sort of animal." The Detective Inspector shuddered and John couldn't help but match his sentiments. "We're dealing with one sick bastard, whoever he is."

"No kidding," John muttered, beginning to feel rather ill at the very thought of what the victim must have gone through. "But how'd he tie her up? It doesn't seem like there are many signs of a struggle, if there even was one. Surely she would've fought back."

"As ever, John, you see but you do not observe," Sherlock's baritone voice piped up from the other side of the room where he'd been inspecting the window, sounding disappointed as ever. The detective made his way over to the corpse, kneeling at the woman's side and gently turning her head with one hand, indicating the faint discoloration at her left temple with the other. John hadn't noticed it before, beneath all the blood. "Here. Look at the bruising on her temple. The murderer knocked her out cold with a blunt object. Not enough to kill her, just enough to give him time to string her up. He used something long and heavy judging by the spread. A pipe, I'd assume."

"We're still searching, but no sign of a weapon yet," Lestrade added, "The M.O. matches the other crimes exactly, though." He took a deep breath, letting his exhaustion show. "So if I had to take a guess, we're not going to find one."

"Any sign of forced entry?" John asked, standing up and taking another look around the room.

"Never is," Lestrade admitted, "Door was dead-bolted from the inside. Landlord opened it up after getting a complaint about the smell from the neighbors. Same thing with the window by the fire escape. Whoever this bloke is, he's good. Hasn't left any sign of a trail since the killing started."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Sherlock interjected, the beginnings of a smug grin curving his lips, "I'd say you know exactly where the killer got in, even if you don't know _how_."

"What the hell are you going on about?" Lestrade asked, his interest piqued.

Sherlock stood and walked back across the room to the window he'd been examining earlier, pulling it open with ease. "The window."

"What about it?" John asked, joining him at the sill and peering outside. They were on the second floor. No fire escape, no visible indication that it'd been used as an exit any time recently. What could possibly make Sherlock think the window was the point of entry?

"Normally when a window's stayed in one position for too long the wood swells and the window sticks, but as you just witnessed, I opened it easily," Sherlock began, speaking quickly but precisely, "From this and the chips in the paint along the edges of the window we can deduce that it's opened fairly regularly, but closed just as often - probably while the victim was at work. There is no lock and a window so easy to open wouldn't take much to jimmy from the outside, which is clearly what's happened. There are faint indentations on the outer edge of the sill and on the back of the window. Someone's pried it open recently. A couple of days ago, I'd assume as some dust seems to have settled on the sill, which would correlate easily with the time of murder. There you have it. The point of entry."

"Brilliant," John marveled, tossing out the compliment before he realized. The consulting detective was positively brimming with smug superiority.

"But how'd he get up here?" Lestrade pressed, making his way over to the window, "Surely he didn't climb."

"That's exactly what the killer did," Sherlock replied confidently, "Look to the left of the window. A pipe. Storm drain, probably." John leaned out the window and checked. Sure enough, there it was, less than three feet away. "Someone with enough upper body strength wouldn't have too much trouble climbing up it. Especially not such a short distance. There's also faint black scuff marks on the outer edge of the sill, more than likely from the killer's shoes coming in and out. Climbing's the only explanation of all the facts."

"So a killer that can climb," Lestrade said, rubbing his hand across the slight stubble shadowing his jaw, "Interesting."

One of the female constables investigating the scene piped up from the hallway, "Like in 'The Blind Banker'! How exciting!"

Sherlock pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. John smirked. Sherlock might hate his stories, but it was beginning to seem more and more like the whole of Scotland Yard was among his readership.

"Love your stories by the way, Doctor Watson," a pretty redheaded constable peeked into the room briefly, "Especially 'The Geek Interpreter'!"

"Yes, yes, let's all congratulate John on his blatant romanticism of cold hard facts," Sherlock ranted, waving his hands in the air for a moment before thrusting them back into his pockets. He looked irritated. "Finished? Then let's get back to the case, shall we?"

"Thank you," John said, rather chuffed, and grinned a bit at the way she blushed as she ducked back out of the room. Cute girl, but a bit on the young side. He returned to the conversation, "So a climber. What are you suggesting, then, more Chinese circus performers?"

"Hardly," Sherlock brushed him off, "The murderer could be any number of things." He turned to Lestrade, "What about the other crime scenes? Would the killer have needed to climb?"

"Well, yes and no," the Detective Inspector began, "The first victim lived alone in a house in Ealing. One floor. No climbing there. My best bet's the victim left his doors unlocked while he was out and the killer snuck - "

"Guesswork," Sherlock interrupted him, "Dull. Send me copies of the case files for the other victims. I'll look over the facts myself. In the meantime, John, we've got work to do." He stepped over the body carefully, making his way out into the hall. "I'll be in touch."

"Er… Right, then," John muttered as he edged somewhat less gracefully around the woman's corpse. Sherlock was out the door before he could catch up.

Back out on the street, John waited while Sherlock hailed a cab, but when he tried to climb in behind him, he was surprised to feel a hand planted firmly against his chest, stopping him from climbing in any further.

"This is my cab," Sherlock said, pushing him back out and onto the street, "You take the next one. Visit _The Daily Telegraph_. See if you can gather any information about Megan's whereabouts the night she went missing." Reaching out, he grabbed the door handle. "I've nicked some evidence I need to look into. Text me when the reports arrive at the flat."

And with that Sherlock pulled the door closed and the cab was off, leaving John confounded on the curb.

Daft bastard.

* * *

As it turned out, Megan's colleague Carl Barker was the last person to have seen her alive. He was young, perhaps a little older than her, short and stocky with a mop of red hair. Not the most attractive bloke, but full of good information and friendly to boot. Megan was working late, he said. She had deadlines to meet. Quite a few of them, in fact. He'd left the building some time around nine that evening, but Megan decided to stay behind and keep working. She was the last person left in the office, but she wouldn't have stayed later than midnight, he said. She was afraid to take the tube alone at night, which was why normally the two of them rode home together. He lived nearby.

That particular mystery (mostly) solved, John moved on to his next line of questioning. He asked after her family. Friends. Anyone else she might have contacted that night after leaving the building. Carl could think of no one. He said that she'd moved to London to join the staff only a couple of months ago. Before that she'd lived in Cardiff. Everyone she knew was back in Wales. Not ages away, but enough to create some distance between them. She hardly ever talked about her family, he said, and when she did the things she had to say weren't particularly affectionate. Sad, but John suddenly knew why it had taken so long for her body to be found. There hadn't been anyone around to worry or check up on her. She was alone.

His questions answered, John bid Carl farewell and headed back to the flat, having nothing else to do but wait for Sherlock's return so that he could share the news. Lestrade brought in the case files around four and John shot Sherlock a quick text message as promised, but he never got a reply. As the hours ticked away slowly, John began to grow nervous. What sort of trouble had Sherlock gotten himself into? And what the hell was he doing with stolen evidence? It wasn't as though Sherlock disappearing for long periods of time was strange in itself. It wasn't. Not at all. The man would run off for days without word on occasion and John would scarcely bat an eye at the fact. But this case had him on edge. It wouldn't do if Sherlock ran out to solve a crime and wound up slaughtered in the process.

So when at long last Sherlock came through the door - nearly nine hours after taking off on his stolen evidence adventure - John immediately bombarded him with questions.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" he asked, trying and failing to disguise his concern as he leapt up from where he'd been seated on the sofa with his laptop, "I was starting to think something had happened to you."

"As I said," Sherlock replied calmly as he stripped off his scarf and gloves, tucking them neatly into the pocket of his coat, "I had evidence to investigate."

"_Stolen_ evidence, apparently," John emphasized, still somewhat ticked at the very idea, "You can't just say things like that and then disappear for the rest of the day!"

"I nicked a bit of the piano wire from the ceiling while Lestrade wasn't looking and went out to find a match," Sherlock explained, "Hardly lethal work."

John relaxed somewhat. At least he hadn't nicked the murder weapon or something else potentially crucial to solving the case. At least Sherlock hadn't been in any danger. That notion calmed him somewhat more than he cared to admit.

"Out with it, then," John prompted, "What did you find?"

Sherlock rolled up his sleeves and plunked down in front of the short stack of Lestrade's case files on the other victims, opening one and speaking as he read.

"The wire's an expensive brand. Strong. Made to sustain a lot of wear and tear without breaking. It's only sold in three music supply stores within a thirty mile radius. The spools are small and the murderer has used what I would assume is the same wire on all of the victims. He's bound to be running out sometime soon and when he does it's likely he'll be running out to restock. Stringing up bodies like that takes power. Only the best will do. I've got a few members of my homeless network keeping an eye on the stores," Sherlock explained, flipping through the evidence complied in front of him, "If anyone purchases that specific brand of wire at any of the stores I've stationed them at, I'll be notified."

"Good," John agreed, "Good idea."

"And you?" Sherlock asked, moving on to the next file, "Did you find out anything about Hahn's whereabouts that night?"

John took a moment to tell Sherlock everything Carl had divulged hours earlier, but none of it seemed to surprise him. John couldn't help but feel that it had all been a waste of time. Like Sherlock had already known half of it - which he probably had - and just wanted a second testament to back up his own. Ah, well. John stifled a yawn. It was getting late.

"Get some sleep," Sherlock said without looking up from the case files, "You won't be any help if you're too exhausted to think come morning."

There was no venom behind the detective's words. It was a passing suggestion. An underlying concern. Nothing more. John smiled a bit.

"Right, then," he nodded, resting a hand on Sherlock's shoulder for just a moment, "Wake me if there's any breakthrough."

Sherlock didn't respond, merely continued to sift through the case files, but John knew his words hadn't gone unheard. Sherlock would wake him if there was any sort of breakthrough. He always did. Another wave of exhaustion sweeping over him, he headed upstairs, stripped down to his pants, and went to bed.

* * *

While John slept, the whole of Sherlock's night was consumed by case notes and crime scene photographs. There had been five murders so far, the victims being two women and three men. Donald Sherridan, the first victim, lived alone in his home in Ealing. He was an accountant. Forty years-old. Never married. No known children. Killed on the sixteenth of October, a little over a month ago. There were signs of a struggle in the sitting room and he'd been beaten rather viciously about the head with a blunt object. The bruising was far more extensive, but seemed to match the bruising he'd seen on Megan Hahn's corpse earlier. It was likely the same weapon, then. After being knocked out cold, the murderer then strung him up by his ankles from the ceiling fan, slit his throat, and let him bleed out like the others. The bloody painting accompanying his corpse was of nothing more than a series of pine trees painted carefully above the sofa in his sitting room. The killer's point of entry remained unknown and his body was discovered four days later by an old friend: Benjamin Walterscheid. A crime of passion, the police suspected.

Two weeks later, on the first of November, the next set of murders occurred. Kara and Benjamin Walterscheid were killed separately in their shared flat, less than four miles from Sherridan's home in Ealing. This piqued not only the interest of the Yard, but Sherlock's interest, as well. Obviously there was a link between the two men and likewise the killer's motive, even if that link hadn't yet been established. But this, alone, was not the only point of interest contained therein. The Walterscheid murders were different. Well… one of them was, in any case. Like the others, Kara had been knocked out cold before having her throat slit. But unlike the others, she had not been strung up, nor had a painting accompanied her corpse. Instead it had been shoved into a broom cupboard. It needed to be hidden, obviously. Sherlock cold not help but imagine that this was because the killer hadn't anticipated Kara's presence at the time of the murder. Probably hadn't even known Walterscheid _had_ a wife. She was killed nearly three hours prior to her husband, who, like Sherridan, was brutally bludgeoned before the killer proceeded to carry on with his now infamous modus operandi, hanging him from a remarkably stable light fixture in the couple's kitchen. Again, no obvious point of entry (a window was seeming increasingly more likely) and the painting was of a cloudy day over a moor.

Two obvious crimes of passion, if the bludgeoning was anything to go by, and one unexpected, yet entirely necessary death. For the murderer's purposes, at least. Sherlock grinned to himself. Interesting.

The two murders that followed bore no visible connection to the Sherridan and Walterscheid murders. Nathan Hammond and Megan Hahn appeared to be victims chosen entirely at random, killed in almost exactly the same way save for the bludgeoning accompanying the deaths of the two men. This merely told Sherlock what he already knew. Their deaths had not bore the same significance - the same anger and dark enthusiasm accompanying the others. What was the purpose in killing them, then?

Hammond, a forty-nine-year-old car salesman, had been in the process of divorcing his wife of fifteen years. A motive might have been established with the wife had it not been proven that, at the time of her husband's murder, she'd been in an entirely different district of London sharing a night with her long-time lover. Likewise, no motives could be linked with the death of Hahn. Both had clean records. Both were (for the most part) alone in the world. So why _them_?

Something crucial had to be linking the crimes. All of them. Some reason why the killer had chosen the people he chose. He had history with Sherridan and Walterscheid. That much was apparent. Best to look into it and seek out a link. He'd need to ask Lestrade for a copy of the men's records come morning. Would probably have to do grunt work in exchange. Dull, but worth it. There was something he was missing, though. Something obvious, staring him in the face. But what?

He looked over the crime scene photos again. Looked at the scarce accumulated evidence. The corpses. The paintings. But nothing stood out to him.

Sherlock sighed, bowing his head and ruffling his hair in frustration. Obvious. Whatever it was, it was obvious. Right in front of him. He was _sure_ of it. His head snapped up at the sound of John's footfalls as he came downstairs, a welcome, if momentary distraction. He glanced at his watch. John had no reason to be awake yet. It was only a bit after three in the morning. Possible that he simply needed to use the bathroom, but nightmares seemed to be the more accurate assumption. It had been several weeks since the last one Sherlock played witness to, but it seemed likely that the crime scene today had stirred up some unpleasant memories. That would also explain John's unusual amount of concern when he'd arrived home earlier.

"About to put the kettle on," John peeked into the sitting room from the kitchen, looking somewhat groggy, "Care for a cuppa?"

"Yes, thank you," Sherlock replied, keeping his eyes trained on the files in front of him without really reading.

John didn't seem terribly shaken, but he didn't really seem alright, either. Sherlock couldn't decide whether he should ask him about it or keep his mouth shut. Would talking about it help? John didn't often talk about his nightmares. There had to be a reason for that. And if he was being honest with himself, Sherlock didn't particularly think he'd make much of a confidant anyways. He'd do it for John, but…

Oh, to hell with it. Sherlock ruffled his hair again, frustrated, and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Yes, it was nightmares and no, I don't want to talk about it," John said as he walked into the sitting room, taking a seat in his chair with a short sigh, "I can actually _hear_ your mind reeling. Stop worrying about it. It isn't anything to concern yourself with."

"I wasn't concerned," Sherlock's head popped up, his first instinct being to deny it all entirely with an air of aloofness. "I was just - "

"Yeah you were," John replied, calling him out without appearing upset by the fact. Instead he seemed almost… amused. Fond, even.

Sherlock suppressed a grin as he looked over at him, prepared to dish out another round of denial, but their eyes met and suddenly his rebuttal was lost. A moment of long, tense silence stretched out between them and Sherlock felt a stirring inside of him. Affection? That seemed the most likely answer, but he could not help but think it was something far stronger than that. Strange, he thought, that he should suddenly be feeling such things now, after having gone his whole life without experiencing the slightest stirring of emotion for either sex. Romance was simply a function which had never intrigued him. But John was different. Morally sound, kind, brave. A perfect foil to his own detached intelligence. Together…

The sound of the kettle coming to a boil caught John's attention and he broke away, standing up quickly and moving into the kitchen. Sherlock wasn't certain, but as he went, he thought he noticed the tiniest smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Strange.

* * *

Lestrade phoned them two hours later with an update, as well as a request. The police were tracking a suspect: Samuel Masters. Seemed a good match. He was a known associate of Sherridan and Walterscheid both and just to top things off, he had a rather extensive list of violent crimes on his record and was frequently seen in the area of Megan Hahn's flat. As good a fit as any, it seemed, and so they had been monitoring him via CCTV since the lead had come in a little after six the previous evening. Now it appeared he was on the move, headed for an address in Sutton just three blocks from Megan Hahn's flat. Returning to the scene of the crime? Perhaps. Hahn's murder had not yet been announced publicly and a killer returning to the scene of the crime wasn't uncommon.

John seemed intrigued, but Sherlock couldn't help but feel that it was all a little _too_ convenient. If Masters truly was the killer - someone with such fastidious and formulaic habits when it came to murder - surely he wouldn't be so _stupid_ as to return to the scene of the crime. But then… Most serial killers were prone to slipping up eventually. As unlikely as it was, it seemed worth a try, at the very least. His mind made up, he agreed to join the watch and by sunrise he and John were stationed in a café in Sutton, close enough to keep a watchful eye on the entrance to Hahn's building without being seen. The man they were looking for wouldn't be hard to miss, Lestrade said. He was tall and broad-shouldered, somewhat overweight, with a snake tattooed on the back of his bald head. They both kept an eye out, John ordering a scone and cup of black coffee while they waited.

Digestion. Boring.

"Do _you _think it's him?" John asked, taking a quick sip of his still scalding-hot coffee and pulling a face.

"Do I?" Sherlock muttered disinterestedly, his eyes glued to the building entrance down the way. "You tell me."

"By the looks of it," John said after taking a bite of his scone, "No. You think it's someone else. You don't think the killer would be stupid enough to come back to the scene of the crime."

"Obviously not," Sherlock said, "The person we're dealing with is careful. Smart. Never leaves much evidence. Why break the pattern now? Six murders and not a single cop on his trail. Why would he - "

He stopped short when he noticed a short, rather frenzied-looking woman with a black bag all but running down the sidewalk. She dashed straight past the window, heels clicking frantically in time with her hurried footsteps, before she took a sharp left and disappeared into the building next door. More flats.

He took a quick glance up and down the length of the street. No visible threats in the area, though, what with the hour being so early (it was only just encroaching upon seven) there was little in the way of pedestrians. Unsurprising. Residential areas such as these were never particularly busy. Especially not on a Sunday. But despite this, she'd looked afraid. Why?

"Sherlock?" John asked, worry apparent in his voice, "What is it?"

Another glance. Still nothing. He settled, but didn't let his guard down.

"It's nothing," he said in an effort to make the worry vanish from John's face.

In response, his companion merely took another bite of his scone, looking somewhat calmer than before. Maybe it was nothing, Sherlock told himself. Maybe the woman was just naturally panicky. Had just gone through a bit of emotional trouble. Maybe her eyes were playing tricks and she'd seen something that spooked her. Nothing to concern himself with, in all likelihood. In the very same moment he finished that thought, Sherlock's gaze fell upon a man with the snake tattoo Lestrade had mentioned, a few dozen feet away from Hahn's building and moving closer by the second. Masters. He was visiting Hahn's building after all. Interesting.

Sherlock nodded his head in the direction of Masters, but when John started to turn around, he stopped him by quickly placing a hand on his arm. Surely it wouldn't be too dangerous to part ways. Normally Sherlock wouldn't concern himself with something so trivial, but the woman he'd seen had him on edge.

"John, I want you to listen to me very carefully," he said, locking gazes with him, and John hung onto his every word, "Masters is about to go into Hahn's building. I'm going after him." He hesitated for a moment. Should he? Hahn was in no danger. But the frenzied woman… She might well be. If something was truly threatening her, it might be worth putting John on the case. If Masters was the true criminal, though… Sherlock snapped out of it immediately. Better safe than sorry. If there was no trouble, then there would be no harm done. "I need you to go next door. A short woman carrying a black bag's just gone in. Keep an eye out for any signs of trouble."

"What? Why?" John seemed confused as Sherlock stood and began to make his way out of the café, "Sherlock!"

"Please!" Sherlock shouted, watching as Masters entered Hahn's building and suddenly became aware of every last second ticking by.

With a nod of understanding, John took a left out of the café while Sherlock ran across the street to catch up with Masters inside the apartments. He hurried inside, heading straight for the elevator Masters had only just entered. The doors began to close, but not soon enough, and Sherlock stopped them with his hand, slipping inside and noting the button Masters had pressed. The fifth floor. Three floors above Hahn's apartment. Sherlock pressed the button for the fourth floor just for good measure and stepped aside.

Masters said nothing as they rode upwards and Sherlock stepped out when the elevator reached the fourth floor without comment. Seeking a staircase quickly and making his way down to the second floor just in case, he stationed himself near Hahn's apartment and waited. The door was still marked with police tape. It wouldn't take much more than a glance to tell that the police had come and combed over the crime scene. For this reason he continually checked the stairs and elevator, but Masters never arrived. His involvement was beginning to seem less and less likely.

Sherlock's train of thought was interrupted as his phone vibrated in his pocket. Not the solitary buzz that signaled a text, but a series of them. A phone call.

John.

He slid the phone out of his coat pocket and answered immediately, "What's going on?"

"Something's happened, Sherlock," John said, sounding rather panicked. There was a loud bang. Sherlock began running down the stairs, no longer caring about Masters. "There was screaming coming from one of the apartments. I've tried to kick the door down, but it won't budge. Get Lestrade and his men over here now!"

"I'm on it."

He hung up, dashing through the lobby and out the doors of the building, phoning Lestrade as he did so.

"Sherlock? What's all this, then?" the Detective Inspector asked, sounding worried, "Has Masters shown up?"

"He has and he isn't our man," Sherlock snapped, frustrated. Was everyone this stupid? "We've got bigger problems at the moment. The block of flats next to the café. John's heard screaming. Get your men over there now. And bring a battering ram."

"Right."

Sherlock jammed the phone back into his coat-pocket, sprinting across the street and into the building the woman he had seen earlier entered. He could hear no screaming. A bad sign. A very bad sign. Another bang resounded further down the hall. A first floor flat. John was trying to kick the door in, but to no avail. A small crowd had gathered in the hall, watching. Sherlock pressed through them.

"Dead-bolted," John said, panting a bit with the effort as he joined his side, "Landlord's gone to find the keys, but I don't think we'll be able to get in this way quickly enough."

"Run out around back," Sherlock demanded, pressing his ear to the door and listening carefully. Sounds of movement, but little else. "Keep an eye on the windows. Make sure no one tries to escape. Lestrade's men will be here any second with a battering ram."

"Right," John nodded, pressing through the small crowd and taking off.

Sherlock jiggled the door handle. Pushed hard against the door itself. Locked _and_ dead-bolted. Probably sealed with a chain, too. Sturdy. Nearly impossible to kick in. Obvious expression of paranoia. He pressed his ear to it again. Listened carefully. Heard nothing.

Shit.

"Out of the way!" A familiar voice barked and suddenly officers were rushing down the hall.

Lestrade. They'd made it. But too late?

"Clear the hallway!" Donovan yelled, ushering people back into the lobby, "Out!"

Sherlock moved out of the way as two of Lestrade's constables positioned the battering ram at the door, rearing it back and slamming it forward. Once. The door didn't budge. A second time. Perhaps a slight movement. Once more and the door cracked, the bolt straining against the frame. Again and it flew open, the metal reinforcements flying free from the frame alongside small pieces of wood. It banged against the inner wall and stilled. Lestrade's men rushed in immediately, guns at the ready.

Sherlock didn't have to look in order to know the killer had already escaped. The flat was too still. Too quiet. There was no sense of danger. Only the odd sensation of having arrived just a bit too late, finding the crime scene as still as it had ever been and yet another person dead.

"Shit," a female constable he'd never seen before said from the sitting room, "It _was_ him, after all."

Sherlock headed into the sitting room, expecting the worst and receiving just that. A corpse and a painting, just like always. He noticed the contrast now more than ever. There, slathered across the once pristine white wall were six bloody letters. Fresh. Still dripping. Taunting and repugnant all at once. Sherlock's eyebrows drew together. His fingers clenched and unclenched in the pockets of his coat. A gibe. A threat. It was all the same. The killer had escaped and another murder was well on its way.

Written across the wall in the blood of an innocent woman, a single word: almost.

"Bloody hell," Lestrade breathed, joining his side just behind the sofa, "He's done it again."

Sherlock was frustrated. Inexplicably angry. More-so than he ever had been, perhaps. A single misjudgment on his part and now a woman was dead. His fault entirely. There was once a time when such a thing wouldn't have bothered him. When he could have moved on with the investigation without batting an eye. But now… Something had changed. John… Sherlock shook his head. Forced himself to move forward. Sympathy. A fool's weakness. He couldn't let something so _human_ stop him from finishing the investigation.

The woman's body was lying directly in front of the mural. Knowing the police were mere feet away, the killer hadn't risked taking the time to string her up. Her throat was slit, blood pooling around her head and shoulders, drenching her hair. Her lips were parted just slightly, her eyes open and glazed over. No visible bruising on the temple. Apparently the killer hadn't wasted time knocking her out first. Odd.

Sherlock looked up, turning his attentions to the scene, itself. The room was clean, for the most part. A broken lamp lay shattered on the floor next to a crooked end table. She'd probably knocked into it when the killer broke the sitting room window, an obvious point of entry and escape. Their mystery killer was getting sloppy.

He stood up from where he'd knelt next to the body. Walked over to the shattered window. Glass was scattered around the floor inside the flat, signaling it had been broken from outside, probably with the pipe used in all the other crimes. The killer had climbed through quickly, leaving footprints in the dust on the sill, and then climbed back out, leaving yet another set of prints. A small shoe size: six, most likely. Black scuff marks on the sill again. The same shoes.

In that moment, John rushed through the door panting and accompanied by two of Lestrade's men. He had obviously been running, probably chasing after the killer, but he looked notably defeated. He'd seen the killer, then, but the person had still managed to escape. Too fast for him, probably.

"I saw her," John said between gasps for breath. He'd been running a long while, clearly. Probably from the moment he'd stepped into the alley between this building and the next. "I couldn't catch her. She was too fast for me. Chased her for a good ten minutes, but she got away."

"She?" a male constable piped up, sounding disbelieving. Disgusted, even. Sherlock shot him a demeaning look and he shrank back.

"Yes," John nodded, taking a deep breath in an effort to slow his rapid breathing, "The killer's a woman."

* * *

A bit on the short side, but not terribly so. Thin. Fast. She probably had light-colored hair, but he couldn't quite tell from the near-invisible bits peeking out from under her hat. She was wearing gloves. Carrying a backpack. Black shoes. Black pants. Black long-sleeved shirt. He hadn't seen her face. He'd only barely caught her shooting out of Tricia Newman's window (they'd identified the body not long after he'd arrived) and taking off down the street. A six block chase, weaving in and out of alleyways, one faulty turn, and she was gone.

John had repeated the details of his run-in with the murderer more times than he cared to remember in the last three hours. No one seemed to believe that a woman - and a tiny one, at that - could have committed such a gruesome string of murders. But John knew it was her. No one else came out of the apartment. Lestrade's men made sure of that. They arrived only moments after he'd taken off after her, yelling back at them to either keep watch or help with the chase. But it all proved to be fruitless. He lost her. She was too fast. Athletic and surprisingly strong.

In the aftermath of the crime, once Sherlock finished examining the scene and finding virtually nothing - and after three additional hours in Scotland Yard, making statements - Lestrade gave Sherlock the files he'd requested on the first two victims and allowed them both to leave. With little else to do but look over them and try to think up a solution, they headed back to the flat.

Sherlock was remarkably quiet the entire taxi ride home. Not uncommon, but it wasn't his usual, contemplative silence. At least not entirely. He seemed angry, almost. For a moment John thought that perhaps he was lapsing into one of his black moods, but no, that couldn't be it. John knew the signs that came with those moods all too well. Had endured enough of them to know when one was coming on. This was something entirely different. Beneath the anger Sherlock seemed almost… Disappointed. And not just because of the killer getting away - though John imagined that was part of it. It was something more than that. If he didn't know him any better John might say the consulting detective almost seemed upset. Upset that they hadn't gotten there in time. Upset that the killer got away. Upset that Tricia Newman was dead.

John wasn't exactly content with the situation, himself. He was silently bearing his own fair share of guilt, but Sherlock… Well, this was unusual. Even for him.

After arriving home and heading upstairs, they spent a series of long, silent hours in the flat together, neither of them speaking. Sherlock stayed busy going through the files Lestrade had given him, losing himself in facts and figures concerning Sherridan and Walterscheid, the two victims - Sherlock said - most likely to be linked with their killer. John decided not to bother him. At least not for awhile. Sherlock would speak when he was ready. When he had a breakthrough. When he stopped blaming himself. But that moment never came. Hours passed. Day faded to night. John ate. Sherlock didn't. Finally, nearly six hours after arriving home, John decided to speak.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" he said, looking directly at the back of the detective's bowed head and setting his cup of tea down on the coffee table, "That you weren't able to save her."

"Of course it doesn't," Sherlock snapped without looking up from the documents he'd been pouring over, "It isn't as though we didn't try."

"But you're still angry," John said, "aren't you?"

"What makes you think that?" the detective replied, turning in his chair to face him where he sat on the sofa. The look on his face was one of annoyance and a touch of disgust. "Caring for a woman I don't know is senseless. Unreasonable. Concerning myself with her death would be a waste of time and a distraction."

When he finished speaking, he looked down at his hands, his head unconsciously dropping like one suffering a crushing defeat. Sherlock… _Sociopath, my arse_, John thought. He stood up and crossed the sitting room, stopping in front of him so closely that their knees were almost touching. Intimate. Familiar. Comforting.

"It's alright, you know," he said softly, reaching out and running his fingers through the hair at the back of the detective's head, "Caring. There's no need to pretend you don't."

"Senseless, John," Sherlock said, not looking up, "Caring is senseless."

"No it isn't."

Slowly, John trailed his fingers from the nape of the consulting detective's neck to the underside of his chin, tilting his head up enough that he could look at him properly. Sentiment rang clear and true in his eyes. Sherlock may fancy the idea of being an emotionless machine, but John Watson knew better. And he had never felt a stronger wave of affection crash through him in his life. It was time, he decided. Months of dancing around one another senselessly, the lingering gazes, the tender warmth that filled him any time they looked at one another… To hell with trying to maintain his rigid heterosexuality. If ever there was an exception, it was Sherlock.

And so, he leaned down, cupping the detective's face in his hands, and gently touched his lips against his. Nothing passionate, nothing sexual. Just a gentle press of lips against lips. Soft. Sweet. Honest. A declaration. A question. John pulled back just as quickly as he'd arrived, stopping a few inches away so that he could look him in the eyes. What he found there was unbridled affection. Sherlock wrapped a hand around one of John's wrists.

Much more sure of him self this time, he leaned in again, kissing him more assuredly. He traced his tongue slowly - carefully - along Sherlock's lower lip, teasing, but not insistent. For a moment he thought he could feel the detective grinning, just a bit, and mere moments later the other man's lips parted and a warm tongue touched his own, slick and inquisitive. John knelt down to even out the height difference between them and prevent the crick already forming in his neck, and Sherlock took this as his chance to plant one hand firmly on John's lower back and thread the fingers of his other hand through the hair at the back of his head.

For a long while they reveled in the sensations of having finally gotten over the long-crumbling wall between them, kissing one another with uninhibited enthusiasm. Sherlock captured John's bottom lip between his teeth and nibbled lightly, sending a jolt of pleasure running up his spine and, feeling particularly brave, John pulled away from the kiss and instead turned his attentions to the pale column of the detective's neck. This earned him a rather raw and appreciative groan.

_Finally_, John thought, his body tingling with the warmth of passion. This was finally his. Sherlock… No more dancing around one another, pining quietly and hoping for the best. The wait was over and it was better than anything he had ever imagined.

"God, Sherlock," John pressed their foreheads together, speaking breathlessly, "I - "

"I know," he replied, planting a small, chaste kiss on his lips, "But we can't do this tonight. We have to - "

The case. Of course. John had nearly forgotten. They had a killer to find. There wasn't time for all the things John all but ached for. He flushed a bit, imagining Sherlock naked and panting beneath him, begging him to please, please just finish it because he's so close to the edge and oh, God! He forced himself to snap out of it. The case. The _case_. They had a serial killer to find. Sex… That could wait until after.

"Right then," John said, nodding and pulling away, resting his hands on Sherlock's knees and noting the pink, swollen quality of his lips. He smiled a bit to himself. "Yes. Of course."

A long, rather awkward silence stretched out between them, and for a moment John thought that perhaps Sherlock had decided waiting wasn't worth the effort, after all. But just as he was about to lean in and kiss him one last time, the silence was broken by the dull hum of Sherlock's phone. He tugged it out of his pocket, answering immediately.

"Yes?" He paused and waited for a reply, sounding rather excited. Was it Lestrade? Had they caught her? "Did you get a name? What did she look like?" Another long pause. Not Lestrade, then. Someone from his homeless network, perhaps? "Excellent. Thank you."

"Vernon from the homeless network," Sherlock explained, hanging up and immediately dialing another number, "He's just seen a young woman purchasing piano wire at a shop in Greenwich. Her description seems to fit quite well." He was silent for a moment as the phone rang, and then: "Lestrade. I think we've got her. She's just been seen leaving a shop in Greenwich. I'll text you the details in a moment. Get CCTV on her as quickly as possible."

* * *

Lestrade was reluctant to make an arrest based on something so simple as purchasing piano wire, regardless of whether or not she fit the suspect's profile. For that reason the Yard kept an eye on her, watching and waiting for the next three days, only to discover that the woman they were watching was, perhaps, among the absolute dullest in London. She rarely left her flat (a rather posh settlement in Brixton) and when she did it was generally only to go for a walk or pop out to the grocer's. She had no criminal record, although Sherlock found through his own investigating that she didn't particularly _need _a record with a past like hers. A motive was easy enough to establish for the murders of Sherridan and Walterscheid, or so Sherlock said. So, when on the third evening she mysteriously disappeared from CCTV for nearly an hour, they sprang.

Sherlock had Lestrade contact Mycroft, who, in return for Sherlock's promise that he would solve one or two 'minor' cases of his choosing, managed to pull up her phone records and confirm his own private suspicions. Hammond, Hahn, and Newman had all called her for some reason or another in the last month. Her record was remarkably devoid of any other calls, (though this was understandable, Sherlock said, judging by her past) save for the names of two other women. After obtaining the addresses and professions of both, one was cleared of any danger as she was currently out of the country and the other left right out in the open. Hannah Green was up next, it seemed, and after snagging the woman's address Sherlock, John, and the Yarders took off for her address in Kensington.

As it turned out, Green's home was the home of a woman with money to burn. Nearly the entire front of it was comprised of enormous windows displaying the sights within, rooms decorated with ornate furniture and expensive wallpaper. The plants lining her yard were lush, green, and well cared for. An expensive car sat in the drive way. It was calm, peaceful. For the moment they could see no sign of danger, but after hearing the soft tinkling of piano keys drifting out from within, Sherlock bolted and John followed him closely. There was a lot Sherlock hadn't let him in on yet. The last hour had been a whirlwind of madness around their flat, Sherlock's great revelation stopped almost immediately by the call from Lestrade about their killer disappearing off the radar. Clearly, though, the sound of a piano being played was akin to the sound of violent and bloody murder.

John had brought his gun, just in case, and as they dashed through the ornate marble archway leading to Green's front door, such was beginning to seem more and more like an excellent idea. He reached back and tugged in from the waistband of his pants, hidden beneath his jacket, and cocked it. He held it at the ready should she make any attempt at attack. But as they threw the doors open, they immediately froze in their tracks. Sherlock blinked, his face a mask, not allowing himself to show fear or surprise. Beside him, John gaped, his gun now held limply at his side.

The woman, Hannah Green, hung from the chandelier, piano wire wrapped tightly around her ankles. She was crying silent tears, too tired to even whimper. Blood slowly seeped from the puncture in her neck, streaming over her face and through her hair before dripping into the bucket that sat beneath her, its contents rippling slowly - _thickly_. She made a small noise and opened her eyes to slits, dragging in a ragged, croaking breath.

John found he was too stunned to move.

There, at the piano, sat the very same woman they'd lost an hour earlier. Playing to her heart's content, heedless of any danger she might face, blood-splashed fingers dancing lightly over the keys. Their strokes slowed, but did not stop.

"John," Sherlock breathed, his eyes transfixed on the killer, "The woman."

John made no reply, but snapped out of it all the same, and ran swiftly to Hannah's side, tucking his gun into the back of his trousers.

"I've been watching your progress, Mr. Holmes."

She stopped playing, replacing the piano's lid and running her hands very softly over it, as though it were a fragile work of art.

"Have you liked my murals? I especially liked my fifth one. A threat. I knew you were getting close. I wanted the blood to still be fresh when you got there. No time for trifles. Red against stark white. I like contrasts, you see."

Sherlock remained silent. John, busying himself with the woman, was whispering quietly and desperately to her, holding the top half of Green's body in his arms as he sawed away at the piano wire with his keys. He dropped them the moment the woman's ankles came free and she fell to the floor. Dead weight.

"Her name's Hannah Green, but I think you've probably figured that out. Her baby grand was so terribly out of tune," she ran her hands lovingly across the piano's lid once more in a gentle caress, "But I fixed that…"

John smacked his hand against Hannah's face lightly, trying to stir her, but she was growing paler and colder by the minute.

"Sherlock," John said, gazing at him from across the room dejectedly. "She's lost too much blood, Sherlock - She can't…"

"Is it full?" she asked, turning at last on the bench to straddle it and gaze over her shoulder at the bucket, "Oh, lovely…"

John watched as Sherlock blinked again. Her high, almost dainty voice had caught them both off guard, but seeing the delicate features of a woman on the face of a psychopath held in it a certain mixture of surprise and horror. Her eyes were large but hooded, slightly glazed by bloodlust. They were a shocking shade of deep blue. Her hair was blonde, spotted now with crimson. Blood. Long, spidery fingers lightly gripped the edges of the bench. A light smile touched her lips.

"I can make another one now," she said. Her head turned toward them, then her eyes. "Would you like to watch?"

Green was growing weaker by the moment. Colder. John took off his dark grey jacket and used it to staunch the flow of blood from her neck. They had to turn their attentions to her murderer. They had to stop her!

"She's too far gone, Sherlock!" John called to him from under the chandelier.

The girl rose from her seat, legs swinging effortlessly as she crossed the room.

"I was thinking of doing birds this time," she said, "I like birds…"

She started to whistle - a light, airy tune - as she made her way towards the dying woman. For an instant, John could see the horrible malice in her eyes, and stealing a second glance at the pale, barely-breathing woman in his arms, he lay her carefully on the cold marble tile beneath his knees and stood, readying himself to draw his gun if he had to.

"That's quite far enough, don't you think?" Sherlock spoke at last, his words calm, "Vivienne."

From the look in her eyes, John could tell that the name came to her as anyone else might receive a bullet to the chest. Her lips parted briefly, as though she might speak, but she closed her mouth just as quickly, turning around to look at the detective once again. John instantly raised his gun, moving carefully around the body on the floor to join Sherlock's side.

"It's been a long time since anyone's called me by that name," she said softly, a tentative smile on her lips, "And who might you be?"

"Sherlock Holmes," he replied, and John could feel the heat of the other man's gaze boring into her, gathering information about her.

"Ah, Mr. Holmes," she replied, "I've heard of you. Quite the puzzle-solver, you are." She turned and glanced at the woman behind her, "Although, I suppose you must be… to have caught me when no one else was able."

"Don't you realize what you've done?" Lestrade demanded from the other side of the room, the gun in his hands shaking with his anger, "Seven victims now, and for what?!"

"Revenge," Sherlock said immediately, "for her parents' deaths."

The woman's lips curved upward in a smile and John repositioned the aim of his pistol. _One move_, he swore internally, _If she makes one move with the intention of harming anyone in this room… I __**will**__ kill her._ But Vivienne didn't move an inch. She remained where she was, her perfect posture and calm composure as daunting as it ever was. She was quite the sight with her long blonde hair and perfect nails dripping blood.

"I suppose you weren't given that great mind for nothing, Mr. Holmes," and her icy manner made his name sound like the very politest of insults, "Correct. But let me ask you, if I may." Her eyes flickered from Sherlock to John's gun and back again, and for the briefest instant, her voice faltered. "How did you figure it out?"

The detective's lips twitched upward for the briefest instant, and John knew well that all Sherlock had gathered in the last couple of weeks was about to be revealed.

"It began with your first slip up, during the murder of Donald Sherridan. You'd clearly spent months tracking him down. So long that when it came time to kill him, you let your passion run free. You let your agenda get ahead of you. You beat him round the head and strung him up, painting the walls - quite literally - with his blood. When Benjamin Walterscheid was the one to discover his corpse, you couldn't have been happier. You tracked him back to his home and waited for the perfect opportunity to play out your personal grudge against him, as well. But his wife was there when you slipped in - something you hadn't quite expected - and you were forced to kill her and hide the body in a broom cupboard.

"The manner in which you beat Walterscheid also speaks of a crime of passion. You held a grudge against these men, for some reason or another. You felt they needed to die. So you killed them both. But it wasn't enough. The very specific way in which you've murdered all of your victims speaks to a sort of thrill you get from seeing them suffer. You couldn't just stop at Sherridan and Walterscheid. You had to keep going. But how to do that? You couldn't just pick any random person off the street. You had to choose people you knew would trust you. So you decided to turn to your talents. Tuning pianos. A profession I must admit I never would have guessed had you not been using some of the most expensive piano wire in London to string up your victims. You placed an advertisement in the papers and waited for your chance.

"Each time someone called you, you chose them as your next victim. A simple enough method to be sure, but this wasn't the manner in which you slipped up. It was the name you chose. Over the last three days I have searched through countless newspapers for piano tuning advertisements. But only one name stood out to me. Marilyn Schroder. A name which I remembered from a cold case file abandoned nearly fourteen years ago: a double murder. The parents were killed but the daughter escaped. You. Vivienne Schroder."

A long silence pervaded the room, and John blinked, "That's bloody brilliant."

"But why the show?" Lestrade asked, "Why string up all these people and paint pictures with their blood? What's the point? Surely there were…" and he paused for a moment, considering his choice of words, "_cleaner_ methods."

"Would you really like to know?" Vivienne asked, her eyes full of childish innocence, "Since I'm going to die anyways, I'd be more than delighted to tell you."

Lestrade shifted uncomfortably, looking around the room for a moment, exchanging glances with Sherlock and John before finally responding, goading her with his gun. "Out with it, then!"

"You see, that afternoon when my parents were killed, my mother was giving me piano lessons. I'd gotten rather good at it. Bach, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, those were some of my favorites. My mother was just beginning to teach me 'Pathetique' when there was a knock at the door," Vivienne giggled and the sound of it forced John to suppress a shudder, "The moment my father opened the door, there was gunfire. Sweet old Benny-boy shot my father right in the forehead. My mother screamed, but it wasn't too long before the guns were trained on her, too. They knew we were a wealthy family, you see, and so while Benny kept his gun on me, Don lead Mummy all over the house, collecting anything he thought was of a great enough value. When he was done, he brought her back into the living room. The two of them exchanged a glance like men do when they're having particularly _naughty _thoughts and while Benny pressed the gun to my head and forced me to continue playing the piano, Don tried to do terrible things to her. Mummy fought back, screaming the entire time, but the music coming from the lovely grand piano we had overpowered the sound of her. He knew he wasn't going to get what he wanted out of her after all, so he shot her. And then he shot me.

"Not fatally, of course. I'm standing here today, after all. But enough so that they thought I was dead. I just laid there, crying and bleeding, until the police found us. They stitched me up real good, but that didn't change anything. My parents were dead and their killers had gotten away. They put me through years of therapy and I sat through it like a good little girl, but it was all wasted effort. My mind was made up from the moment I woke up an orphan. I was going to kill them. It took years, but I did it. I found them. Turned out Benny and Don were still good friends. Had cleaned up their acts. But it didn't matter to me. I came after them anyways and I painted the walls with their blood. Just like they'd painted mine with my parents'.

"They were both dead," she said, sounding almost gleeful, "I'd killed them. You would have thought that would make it all better. But it didn't." She looked down at her blood-encrusted nails, picking at one almost nervously. "They were dead, but so were my parents. And I couldn't change that. I'd taken the lives of their killers. I'd punished them for what they did. But it wasn't enough. It never would be. So I made a game of it." She smiled as she scraped the rust-colored flakes of blood out from under her thumbnail. "I'd wait for someone to call and ask for a piano tuning, set the date for a week or so later, and then I'd track them. Make them feel afraid. Weak. And when I had them good and afraid… When I knew they were expecting it, I'd break in and I'd kill them. Quietly." She looked over her shoulder at Green, now still as death. "And that… That was definitely enough." Sherlock stared directly at her, his eyebrows knit together in thought. "It was power, Mr. Holmes. Control. Something I haven't tasted in fourteen years."

"You're a monster, 's what you are," Lestrade breathed, his hands shaking once more, "You got your revenge. Why murder so many others?"

"For the _thrill_," she emphasized, still as eerily pleasant as ever, "I find it's rather difficult to create when I don't have blood on my hands." She turned around and began to make her way up the grand staircase behind her. "I knew I'd be caught eventually. But before that…" John and Lestrade were quick to follow her, Sherlock not far behind. Vivienne stopped in front of the enormous window at the top of the stairs and smiled. "I wanted to know what it's like to _fly_."

The next bit was blur of light and sounds, all swirling together in John's memory to reproduce something hazy and near unrecognizable. The shock of the moment left him in a daze and it was not until later that he was able to recall exactly what it was that occurred. It all simply happened too fast.

In an instant there was a gun in Vivienne's hand (pulled from the waistband of her dress, he assumed) and she was firing - firing rounds into the enormous window in front of her, the glass cascading around her like rain. John ducked to shield his face from it all and by the time he looked up, the woman was falling headfirst towards the pavement. It wasn't an instant later that he recognized the sickening crunch associated with her landing. He wasted no time looking out the window from above. Instead he rushed down the staircase, Sherlock just ahead of him, and made his way out the grand front doors through which they'd all entered.

The scene before them was a sight to behold.

The lights of the police cars glinted off the broken glass surrounding her body, giving the whole scene a sort of ethereal feel. Red, blue. Red, blue. Glinting and sparkling. Blood trickled slowly from the cracked crown of her head, pooling around it. Suicide. Cowardice.

Vivienne Schroder was dead.

* * *

"It just doesn't make sense," Lestrade said a little under an hour later as he stood with them, watching a now stabilized Hannah Green being wheeled into an ambulance, "Why would she just kill herself like that? Even if she knew she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison, what was the point?"

"Perhaps she didn't fancy living a life behind bars," John said as he watched the EMTs shut the ambulance's doors.

"She did what she set out for," Sherlock said calmly, "She killed Sherridan and Walterscheid. The rest was just a game."

A long silence stretched out between the three of them until at last Lestrade sucked in a deep breath, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Well gents," he said, turning to face them, "Thank you for the hard work. Couldn't have solved it without you. I'll need you to come down to the station tomorrow to make a statement, but otherwise, it's been another job well done."

Lestrade proffered a hand and Sherlock shook it, his eyes trained on something else in the distance. Schroder's corpse being placed in a body bag. An end, but not one they were hoping for. John shook Lestrade's hand.

"Oh, I can't wait to read about this on your blog, Doctor Watson!" John looked over to find the female constable from two crime scenes earlier looking particularly chipper, "It's all been so exciting! And the deductions! Mr. Holmes, you're just as brilliant as Doctor Watson ever made you out to be!"

Sherlock looked slightly amused, but for the most part his expression was one of annoyance. John was fairly certain Sherlock would never appreciate the rather rampant feedback he got on his blog.

"Don't mean to rain on your parade," John said, laughing a bit and rubbing the back of his head, "But I think this is case is one I'll save writing up for another time."

"Oh," she looked rather embarrassed, "Well…" She paused, fidgeting a bit with the brim of her hat. John grinned. She really was cute. "Perhaps… Perhaps we could discuss it some time? Over coffee?"

She looked hopeful. John hated to turn her down, but Sherlock -

"Apologies," Sherlock grumbled from beside him, stopping his internal monologue in its tracks, "But I do believe John has prior engagements." A hand latched firmly onto his bum, slipping into his back pocket, and John had to suppress a squeak, his face turning bright red. "Come along, John."

The look on the female constable's face was one of raw shock and - if it were possible - even greater embarrassment. John almost turned around to apologize as they walked away, but Sherlock was leading him away from the scene far too quickly to process anything coherent. And… well… The hand currently slipped into his back pocket was a bit of a distraction, too.


End file.
